Nature produces a huge number of structurally diverse chemical substances with varying and potent biological activities. By exploiting these biological activities, researchers have discovered many utilities for natural products, including, but not limited to, their use as therapeutic agents, pesticides and antibiotic agents.
After discovering that a natural product has a particular biological activity, it is often desirable to prepare analogs of the natural product in order to optimize its properties. Generally, this is accomplished by preparing the analogs from the natural product itself or by synthesizing the analogs directly from readily available starting materials. Unfortunately, natural products and their analogs are typically complex molecules requiring multi-step syntheses to prepare even small quantities of the compound. To develop such syntheses is usually laborious, costly, and time consuming.